


Born Again

by fellowshipper



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, M/M, Pre-Thor (2011)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:13:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fellowshipper/pseuds/fellowshipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Loki killed was to prevent an attacker from plunging a spear into Volstagg’s back. He couldn’t help but feel that his mother would be disappointed to know he’d turned her gifts into weapons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born Again

**Author's Note:**

> Began as a drabble and turned into a ficlet that I posted on my rp blog. Figured I might as well post it here as well. I debated for a long time over the archive warnings, then figured I'd put them there as I couldn't make up my mind about whether they applied or not. 
> 
> THERE IS DUBCON IN THIS. If that bothers you, please skip this fic.
> 
> There's an element of underage business in here, but given that we're talking about aliens here who live for thousands of years, who knows what they would actually consider to be an age of consent? 
> 
> Assorted other triggering/sensitive matters include some misogynistic dialogue and some brief violence that isn't (I don't think) too excessively graphic. If these things are troublesome for you, again, please skip this fic.

Loki was still an adolescent when Thor led his first battle. It was little more than a skirmish in some small territory Asgard had claimed long before either of them was born, but it was still a battle, and Loki was still obliged to go along despite his reservations.

So Loki went, and though he had earned a reputation as one skilled with a dagger, he preferred to stay in the shadows and use his sorcery to help where he could and to harm where he must.

The first time he killed was to prevent an attacker from plunging a spear into Volstagg’s back. He couldn’t help but feel that his mother would be disappointed to know he’d turned her gifts into weapons. 

He was hesitant at first, unsure how far he could push or even what the limits of his abilities were. As it turned out, his imagination was greater than his body could stand, so he burnt out in a wild flare of energy and then awoke several minutes later, pulled from the fighting and left to recover behind the safety of a large elm tree.

But the magic still coursed through his veins and made his blood sing with a power he’d never felt, so he staggered back into the fray, arms outstretched, eyes wild, coattails flapping in real and arcane wind as he pulled energy from Yggdrasil Herself. He was a fearsome sight, he knew, bathed in green light and sparking fire from his fingertips.

When Thor looked at him from atop the hill, Mjolnir hoisted to the air to gather the storm clouds, there was lightning in his eyes and murder in his teeth, and there was pride there when he looked upon his younger brother. Loki knew where he belonged.

Loki had heard stories about Asgard’s forces. He only had firsthand experience with the Einherjar that patrolled Gladsheim, the same guards he saw day in and day out, many of whom had watched him and his brother grow up. He knew only stories of the rougher, more volatile members of the greater army, largely comprised of captured prisoners from other battles or adventurers who sold their blade for coins and thrills.

He’d heard stories too about the small population boom that followed months after Asgard’s warriors had visited a location. To their credit, the warriors were usually warmly received by those they fought to protect, with innkeepers offering free food and boarding and pretty maidens, having nothing else to give, offering their bodies as thanks.

Asgard’s victorious forces would party endlessly for days on end following a battle, ale and women never in short supply.

But sometimes those passions turned inward, and Loki was nothing if not a predator, even when he made such pretty and convincing prey.

Following that first battle, he sat near one of the many campfires that had sprung up almost without notice, pretending not to notice one warrior who was very much noticing him. Lust for sex and lust for violence were closely related for all of Asgard’s fighters, it seemed, and couldn’t be unwound for some of them. Loki watched the man watching him and knew what type of fiend that was, which was exactly why he got up and walked deeper into the woods, away from the celebration, and looked behind him to make sure he was followed.

He’d given his body before, both to men and women, but every one of those chosen had been weak and afraid to assert themselves with a prince, even the lesser prince of Asgard. He liked that, honestly, as it gave him the feeling of respect that was so often lacking in Thor’s company, but he wanted…he wanted more, wanted to be handled as though he wouldn’t break. He had proven himself. He was a  _man_  now, baptized in fire and blood, and he understod, he  _knew_  how adrenaline felt like lust felt like war felt like power felt like  _magic_.

"Do you tease, boy?" the warrior asked by way of introduction, and Loki smirked, coming to a stop beside an immense elm, similar to the one he’d been left under earlier in the day. 

"I’m not a boy." 

The man—Agni, Loki dimly remembered hearing him called before (and one whose name meant  _fear_ should have put him off, but it only drove him on)—returned the smirk, revealing a broken front tooth that was still bleeding. 

"You think one fight makes you a man? Fight a dozen, a hundred times. Beg the valkyries to take you and laugh when they tell you the rest of Valhalla fears you. Look a man in the eye and watch him cower like a dog as you come close, and hear him beg you with his last breaths before you draw the ax down to cleave his head in two.  _Then_ you’ll be a man.” 

He unbuckled his belt, dropping it and his assorted weapons to the forest floor. Loki swallowed and tipped his chin up, unnerved and yet oddly aroused all at once. 

"But no. You won’t. You fight from the shadows. You hide and cast your spells and let others fight for you. You’re a beautiful little witch-boy, but you are no man."

Loki swallowed again, harder this time, but he stood his ground as Agni advanced on him until they were close enough Loki could smell the stench of dried blood clinging to him  _everywhere_ : his clothes, his hair, his beard, practically oozing from his pores. 

Loki was about to suggest a bath first when a sudden strong hand gripped him between his thighs, squeezing hard enough to make him go up on his toes to try to ease the pressure. 

"You got a cunt under there, witch? Is that what you’re hiding?" 

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong? Haven’t you a cock of your own that you can know one when you feel it?”

A sudden backhand knocked Loki’s head back against the tree hard enough for his vision to swim, but he laughed up at the limbs hanging over him anyway. 

He kept laughing, knowing it was only going to cause more trouble, even as Agni turned him to face the tree and began tearing at his breeches, muttering all manner of physically impossible threats along the way. 

It was only with the first breach of two dry fingers that Loki began to doubt the wisdom of this plan. If he’d wanted to be fucked hard by someone who didn’t care about his status, he was assuredly going to be successful in that regard; if he wanted to be able to walk properly, however…

"Wait," he ordered, so used to others obeying him that it never occurred to him that there might be a time when someone  _wouldn’t_. He gasped as a third finger forced its way in. “I said  _wait_ , damn you.”

"Cry for me, witchling," Agni spat, and Loki shuddered at the feeling of saliva dribbling down the back of his neck. "Show me what a little boy you still really are. Or a little girl, more likely." 

At the first press of Agni’s hips into his ill-prepared body, Loki tensed and arched away. One strong hand pinned both his thin wrists over his head while another hand came around to cover his mouth. Loki bit and tasted blood again—not his own this time—and cried out, muffled and broken, when he was finally, fully breached.

"Ain’t no cunt," Agni murmured at his ear, "but still a tight little thing, aren’t you? Those rumors aren’t true about you, then? You don’t let the help fuck you in the stables? Hela’s tits, boy, rumor’s that half the army’s had you by now. You should be used to taking it. S’what pretty little witches are for. Ain’t no use in battle. Might as well be a whore if you got no other use."

Loki’s face burned with humiliation, but  _oh_ , this…was what he’d wanted? No. No, not this, but…well. The truth hurt,  _especially_ to a liar, so he didn’t protest. It was true. All of it. Not the rumors, of course, but he’d thought the same. Magic tricks were nothing against swords and arrows, and when he’d tried to prove otherwise, he’d exhausted himself and ended up passed out and in need of rescue. 

 _he’s right he’s right you useless wretch you whore you pathetic useless whore._ Insult after insult curled through his mind like a fine mist, punctuated by each thrust that pushed him against the tree and opened new scratches from the rough bark against his ( _pale dainty flawless womanly_ ) skin.

He wanted this. 

He’d  _asked_ for this. His entire life had been leading to this. 

In the background, voices rose in yet another victory song. Asgard’s proud warriors were no doubt gathered around and exchanging stories of their own personal wins and celebrating the lives of the brave who had fallen. Loki would never be one of them. He would never be welcomed. No one would toast him, either in shared celebration or in honor of his valiant death. 

He fought from the shadows, and so he  _belonged_ in the shadows, used and forgotten. 

Immediately after the fight, when he had been so certain that Thor would finally look at him as an equal rather than the little brother who had always tugged at the end of his cape, Thor had clapped him on the back ( _not the shoulder he doesn’t respect you he will never respect you_ ) and laughed about Loki’s parlor tricks creating a pretty light show. 

Loki arched back against Agni and dragged his hands down the tree, opening new gouges in his forearms and watching the sleeves of his tunic darken with blood.

 _Parlor tricks_. Loki would show him. He would show Thor and his witless friends, the army he led, the realm he would lead one day soon. Loki would show any being in the universe that cared to turn its eyes toward him that he was no petty conjurer meant only to amuse children and idiots with sleight of hand.

"Stop," he ordered, though he wasn’t surprised when he kept getting crushed against the tree and every turn of his hips felt like he was being torn apart in the most vile and, gods help him, the most  _glorious_ way.

His mind was elsewhere, so far that he didn’t realize he’d traveled far from this place until the hand moved from his mouth to the back of his head to shove him forward, face-first, into the tree. He clenched his jaws and squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring his flagging erection and the heat in his body that he still wasn’t sure meant he was ashamed or aroused or some sickening combination of the two. 

When it was done, no matter how he wished to drop to his knees and vomit, he held his ground, clinging to the tree so that he didn’t reveal his trembling hands or the tears burning his eyes because he refused to let them fall.

"Thank you," he muttered when he caught his breath, slowly allowing himself to settle back on his feet instead of the tips of his toes. He shook his arms to work the blood back into his hands.

Agni stared at him, eyebrows lifted.

"You were right." 

"About what?" 

Loki was proud of himself. There was no sign, not even the slightest hint, that he’d fashioned an illusion of himself and managed to get around Agni without being noticed while the other man was stuffing himself back into his trousers.

There was no hint, in fact, that anything was amiss until Loki slid the dagger from his sleeve and reached out to pull it across Agni’s throat, unerring and without hesitation. The illusion standing near the tree faded. 

"This  _is_ much better,” Loki pointed out, manic grin splitting his face as he kicked Agni over onto his back where he had fallen in a stunned heap in the leaves. He knelt and watched the blood gush from the wound, knowing he didn’t have long, so he grabbed the man by the hair and pulled him up to look him in the eye. 

"Am I a man  _now_ , you monster? Do the valkyries come for you now? Do they?  _Do they_?” 

Agni tried to answer, his words cutting off in a gurgle, and Loki howled with laughter and leaned in to kiss him, stealing the final breaths from his lungs. 

Climbing to his feet, Loki waved a hand at the wide-eyed corpse, igniting it in a sudden onslaught of green flames. The body would burn cleanly without a trace that way; he had learned the trick when he and Thor were children. He would draw caricatures of their tutor to amuse them, then burn the papers before he could be caught and scolded. 

He’d never tried anything so large—or living—before, but today was a day of many firsts, it seemed.

The body would burn without a trace, but neither would the man’s spirit find rest, and that was good enough for Loki. 

Satisfied, he walked back toward camp with head held high, a new confidence in his stride. He wore his shame and his scars like armor. As ever, he slipped like water through cracks between the reveling soldiers, knowing that, for once, the stares he earned were borne of fear. 

If he could not earn their respect, he would demand their fear. That, too, was good enough.


End file.
